


breaking and accepting

by cettevieestbien



Series: drabbles. [19]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Avenger Bucky Barnes, Bruce Banner Feels, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Bucky can't even, Darcy Lewis Feels, Deaf Clint Barton, Edward is Bucky and Darcy's kid, Everyone Feels, Experimentation, F/M, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kid Avengers, Kinda, Mild Hurt/Comfort, No Spoilers, Not detailed at all, Oops, Run-On Sentences, Sam Wilson Feels, Slurs, Steve Rogers Feels, They all have issues, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Is Not Helping, briefly, can that be a tag, on people, poor babies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 02:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3233489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cettevieestbien/pseuds/cettevieestbien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Avengers went on a mission in 2016 and never came back.</p><p>Darcy finds them in a diner in a town east of D.C.</p><p>OR</p><p>Bucky Carter has double memories, just like his friends. He watches himself kill people nearly every day. But he's definitely not a psychopath. He checked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is just a prologue, and heads up - this fic won't be very long.
> 
> The main premise is that the Avengers were taken and de-aged, then raised as normal kids. Their friends and lovers were left behind and got older and lived as the Avengers grew up.
> 
> This is all basically set-up and might not make much sense. Also, not beta-read, and I don't have the time to check it myself yet, so it may be awful in that respect, too.

The story of James Barnes and Darcy Lewis is long and complicated and amazing.

They met when he was recovering and she was becoming the SI Vice-Head Bitch, under Pepper, who was the Head Bitch herself. They just talked sometimes, or hit on each other without it going anywhere. They both knew they affected the other - the look in Bucky's eyes when Darcy called him soldier, the way Darcy shifted when she caught Bucky staring or when he blatantly felt her up said it all - but they did nothing about it. Wasn't a good time, couldn't hold a relationship with their situations, any variation thereof.

But there was a betting pool. Everything from first kiss to how many kids they'd have to who would die first and how the other would react - all were bet on. Darcy was kind of mortified, but Bucky just seemed vaguely amused and kind of ticked off about it.

Bucky had always seemed pretty chill to everyone who hadn't seen him in action, which meant that the ticked off part was kind of new. It didn't scare her - she dealt with Jane, Tony and Bruce all day everyday - but it was unexpected.

She encountered the anger a lot, after they found out about the betting, and again, she wasn't scared. It was more sad to her, that he could act that well to hide how he felt. She knew all about what had happened to him when he was with HYDRA, and she'd been angry about it, and 20 years later, she would still be. She knew that he thought he knew showing feelings would get him in trouble, like I'm gonna beat your ass for showing that you don't like insert here trouble, which was just sad.

So, she made it her goal to make him comfortable where he was, with the people he lived with, doing things that were expected of him but not doing it the way that he didn't like or didn't actually want to do, but did anyway because he didn't want to leave the Avengers. (He had enough sense to know that if he wasn't in a good place with the Avengers, then he needed to leave - but he didn't want to, which broke everyone's heart the first time he had said it aloud to all of them. Seriously, he'd said it, his voice had broke and everyone had just melted, even Nat and Bruce and Tony and - gah.)

He took her efforts with an ease she didn't think he really had, and tried to discourage her daily. She stuck to her guns, and he became more and more confused with every passing day that she sought him out and asked what he wanted to do until she had to go back to the Explosive Trio.

When they first kissed, Darcy had been fantasizing about it for at least a millennium and had gone over just about every scenario in which it could happen. They way it did - Bucky saving her from AIM/HYDRA/random goons (they'd all mixed up and formed some allegiance together) and then kissing her when he was forcing her into an ambulance - had never crossed her mind.

Their first date at a fancy restaurant had been interrupted by Doom Bots (all caps) coming in through the windows, so their second first date was just movies in bed. They watched some old movies, and some Disney movies and by the time they got around to Harry Potter, they were both passed out.

 ****Their relationship progressed. Darcy and Bucky juggled emotionally charged moments, amazing sex and normal, everyday relationship stuff like coffee dates and long talks. Darcy said she loved Bucky long before him, but when he did, it was a freaking _speech_ , and Darcy rewarded him greatly.

He'd proposed to her just a few days before he and the others went missing. 

Darcy thought life was completely unfair. Then she found out she was pregnant.

* * *

 

The Avengers went on a mission in 2016 and never came back.

The Avengers were searched for everywhere. All over the world, they were looked for, and there wasn't so much as a metal finger or bullet or arrow to explain their disappearance.

The Avengers left behind people, people who expected them back within the week. When a month had passed by, and not even JARVIS could find one damn bit of anything, Darcy was puking her guts up every morning and Jane found she couldn't work with her SCIENCE! buddies gone, they called off the biggest searches and started their own.

Carol Danvers, James Rhodes, Sam Wilson and Kate Bishop, honorary Avengers, undertook the biggest search, while the rest - namely, Betty, Jane, Pepper and Darcy - all tried to establish communication with them.

It didn't work.

The Avengers were gone for a whopping four months - time spent crying and stress eating and unending searches - when Darcy walked into the common room, said "Barnes knocked me up," and then started sobbing into Sam's shoulder.

The Avengers were gone for eight months when Darcy had the baby, who she wanted to name James Steve Barnes, but named Edward James Lewis because Carol and Kate and Sam insisted she give him his own name.

When the Asgardians came down to Midgard, Darcy had gone to live with her parents, Kate had graduated high school, and Pepper had made another million dollars. Jane explained the situation with Sam, who was the only emotionally-smart person to ever live in the tower, and the Asgardians had aided in their searches.

Little did they know, the Avengers were alive and kicking. Literally.

When Tony Hill was "born," he kicked Maria Hill, his new mother, right in the face. When Clint Coulson was "born," he struggled in Phil Coulson's arms. When Natasha May had been "born," she had looked Melinda May in the eye, and started screaming. When Thor Fitz, Bruce Triplet and Steve Fitz were "born," they were much, much calmer (Thor was older than the other two, so he had reason), but also nearly broke Antoine Triplet and Leo Fitz's noses (Bruce went with Antoine, Thor and Steve went with Fitz). When Bucky Carter was "born," he was silent, not breathing, even when Sharon Carter gave him CPR. He only started breathing when Phil Coulson poked him in his stomach, hard.

The first double memories any of them would remember having was Thor's memory, who remembered a dark haired boy with a silver tongue and tall, royal halls.

The first time any of them would remember fighting as the Avengers together, would be Bruce's memory, where he saw giant, hulking alien whales in the sky, and flashes of red - hair, cape, shield, suit.

The de-aged Avengers met in pairs. Thor and Steve were brothers, and they met Bucky when they were just a year old, but Bucky, who was teased about his arm, stuck to Steve like he'd been glued there, and didn't try to get to know Thor very much at all. Tony and Bruce met when they were four, in a garage where the owners let them tinker with things if they were careful. Clint and Natasha met and were immediately friends.

Then, Steve, Thor and Bucky met Natasha and Clint, and the group expanded to Tony and Bruce when they were all around the age of ten.

They grew up together, and knew each other's biggest secrets. Even if they mostly stuck to their main little groups, they were a group and could deal with anything the others threw at them. Like memories of fucking models (Tony), memories of dying (Steve, Nat and Clint), memories of mystery people beating the shit out of the remember-er (Bucky, Steve, Nat, Clint and Bruce) and also memories of killing people (Clint, Bucky and Nat).

They thought it was - not normal, per se, but a fact of life that they had double memories and stuck together at times only because of that (aka, Tony would dig and dig and dig and Steve would get mad and they would all hate each other for a day at most, but then forgive each other because they didn't know how to deal with the memories). They thought they'd live with them forever.

They were wrong.

 

* * *

Sharon Carter had never agreed to becoming a mother. Maria Hill and Melinda May hadn't, either. And it wasn't like Phil Coulson, Antoine Triplett and Leo Fitz had just wanted to be a father, either.

But they'd all had to.

When they had been "approached," if you could call being kidnapped at the same time as the Avengers being approached, they had been given two options. Pretend that the Avengers are your children, or get killed in the long, slow and painful way everyone fears. Sharon Carter had agreed, if only because she knew Steve, and she had some idea of Natasha, Clint, Sam and even Bucky.

They weren't told who they would be parenting. They were told exactly zip about anything. The people who had taken them had just handed off babies to them, and Sharon just happened to get Bucky. Then, they were given the only information they would get - you will all live in a town east of D.C., in houses we have paid off. You will make lives for yourself. You will raise these heroes as you want. You will not abandon them. You will let things play out naturally (which Sharon didn't like, because the whole de-aged permanently thing was not natural).

And that was it. They got nothing else. She didn't feel too bad for herself.

She felt bad for Fitz, though, who had both Thor and Steve, and Maria Hill, who got Tony.

Sharon had looked at Bucky, with a miniature metal arm and scars too big for his tiny little body and gasping lungs, and got with the program. She could do it. She could definitely do it. She could raise him in a good house, with enough food and happiness to try and reverse all the bad that had happened to him.

Maria Hill had similar thoughts. It was no secret Tony Stark had been neglected as a child. At least, not in what had been SHIELD for 70 years. His file had distinctly said: neglected as child. Avoid topic subject.

And, from the times Maria had interacted with Tony, she knew he compensated for that neglect by making people notice him. She had a few ideas on how she would change that for him the second time he grew up. And why not? Everyone deserved to paid attention to, especially by parental figures. Tony had done a lot of good in the world - she could pay some of it back.

On the other side of the room, Leo Fitz was juggling two babies. Except, one was a year old, and the other was at least a few months. He had no idea what he was supposed to do with the God of Thunder and Captain America, but he would be able to get through it, right?

He had a hard time convincing himself.

Antoine Triplett watched Fitz coo to the blonde boys he had, and slowly rocked the baby in his own arms. It was Bruce Banner - a survivor of child abuse, the man who outran the US army for years, the man who saved Tony Stark's life in the Battle of New York.

Antoine had just rolled with the punches. He had a plan in place. Bruce would know he was adopted, but loved. Bruce would be free to do what he wanted so long as he was safe. Bruce would be friends with anyone he wanted.

Antoine would do it. Someone had to pay back these heroes, and he would gladly do it.

He had a feeling all of the new parents in the room felt the same way.


	2. In Which Darcy Meets The Teen!vengers and Bucky Can't Even

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy's legs made her do it. She swears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Significantly longer. Switches tenses.

Bucky looks up at the woman who stormed over to his table and realizes one thing immediately.

He knows her. Looking at the woman in front of him who'd just walked right up and blatantly asked them who they thought they were, he comes to that realization - and it's a shock because he's never met her. Glancing around at his "friends" tells Bucky that none of them have met her, but they all recognize her and she recognizes them andandand.

She's got a teen behind her, about his age, and he looks a lot like Bucky, actually - black hair and blue eyes and a square jaw and a fiercely loyal look on his face which Bucky knows comes onto his own face every time Nat or Bruce are made fun of and he's going in for a fight - and she's older than him - enough to be a cougar, but Bucky wouldn't think about that just yet, maybe later, when he's alone - but Bucky wants nothing more to bury himself in her aura and relax (because it's not like she's some perfect stranger, or anything, no sir).

He's never met her, but he knows her.

Other thoughts race to the forefront of his mind as it sinks in that another Weird Something is happening. They are as followed: he feels like he is in love with her. He wants to get to know that teenager, because something about the guy makes Bucky feel expectant and giving. He is freaking lucky that she has not yet even threatened his life - because he somehow knows it will happen if he sticks around long enough.

There are more, and frankly, it's a lot to process for him in the span of seconds. So he goes to what he knows.

He's only 17 - he should want to let loose and have fun. But she makes him feel like that isn't enough, even though he's yet to say a word to her. It's freaky, the effect he can already tell she has on him.

Bucky catches her eye - she wasn't looking at the others now with a fiery gaze, no sirree, just him, and why is he suddenly so hot - and something flashes in his mind's eye. Something he remembers.

Rolling around in bed with her, laughing and moaning. Telling her that he loved her like he didn't know he was capable of. Watching the life drain out of some strangers eyes because they'd threatened her. Thinking that he wanted to live again, specifically with her and her amazing coffee skills. Entertaining the idea of children. Entertaining the idea of marriage and family and forever. A tube, seven tubes; falling into the tube; thinking of her before something happened and he couldn't breathe; having double memories since he was born.

It's terrifying because he remembers living those moments, but he hadn't. He hadn't lived those moments. It wasn't some deja vu bullshit, either, no, it was a lot freaking worse. A family? Marriage? He repeats, he's only 17, but those things are things he somehow wants, and it scares the shit out of him. Where's the playboy attitude? Where's the anti-commitment-phobe that actually wasn't into commitment? Why did he feel like it was his time to become a family man?

Bucky isn't one to freak out. But.

What does Bucky Carter do, instead of doing what he always does (aka, meet the bull head on)? He runs like hell, as far away from Steve and his motley crew and the lady and the other teenager as he could get.

He ran, because it wasn't exactly new, it was just too much. (Too much. It was always too much.)

He'd always had that happen to him - his mom said it was normal, him feeling/knowing/wanting things ahead of schedule. She said it was normal to be a coward about problems, like, I don't know, being in love with some perfect stranger. But it wasn't, oh god, it was the farthest thing from normal, wasn't it? What 12 year old remembers the taste of age old whiskey (like, flipping 1900, for fuck's sake - he was born in 2017, there was no way he could've gotten a 1900), exactly? He had.

What 16 year old had memories of losing his virginity to someone out of the 1930's even though his virginity was still in tact? Bucky did.

Oh, yeah, he was fucked up, probably something a lot worse than that, and that woman - Darcy, he knows even though she hadn't introduced herself - was living proof of it.

He needs to be locked up!, his brain shouts, and Bucky is inclined to agree.

Instead of going home (and he pictures it in his mind, but he sees a place he's never stepped foot it), he goes right for the graveyard.

* * *

When it has been nearly 18 years since the Avengers went missing, Darcy decides to pull Edward out of class and take him on a drive. He grew up without a dad, and she'd never bothered to remarry, so she was his favorite person. Why not spend the day with him? He was also her favorite person, so it was a win-win, anyway.

Of course, that drive takes her to the little town a ways away from where Edward went to school and where she worked at the local VA (stupid Sam, stupid Bucky). She pulls into the small diner, noticing that there aren't any cars, but she can see that there are people inside.

The food they order in the diner is horrifically like what she would expect from a 5 star restaurant in New York that Tony used to eat at. It tastes like one she remembers Tony used to rant and rave about before they all went fucking missing.

(And yeah, she had anger about that oozing out of her ears. She got no warning. None of them did - and she's talking her, Jane, Pepper, Betty, Rhodey, Kate, Carol, Sam, all of them. The Avengers were just - poof - gone. Also, she just had to be pregnant when her husband was probably KIA'd for the second time. Seriously.)

Edward likes it though, likes it in the way that says he isn't actively trying to pretend-hate it, he's so preoccupied with eating, so Darcy eats it, even if it tastes bland like it never used to (stupid Tony).

"Hey, mom?" He asks, once they've been eating for a moment without any conversation. He got the shyness from his Uncle Steve, she liked to say to her friends, because they didn't know that Uncle Steve was Captain America. "Can you tell me about Dad, again? Something you haven't told me already," he clarifies a second after his question.

Darcy had not been shied away from making sure Edward knew his father was a superhero and saved lives like it was his job, because it was. Every so often, he asked for more about Bucky, and she gave it to him. She knew he wanted to have some semblance of a relationship with his long-gone father, and he knew that his father had gone legit missing, not "missing," aka "ran away from responsibility." (Lord knew that he would have actually liked being a father and would have wanted more - which would happen the second he could birth them.)

"He had a dark side," she said spook-ily, instead of telling him about the horrors that came from his father's hands.

Edward rolled his eyes. "I know. You've told me a million times. But - did he have any family? Did he want to go to college or was he just suddenly a hero? Did he ever want something more in his life other than superhero-ing?"

Thing was, she'd never told him which hero Bucky - his father - was. So, Edward knew about the Avengers (what kid didn't these days, they were in history books - which, duh), and he knew his father was among their leagues, but he didn't know which one. It was probably infuriating.

"He had a sister named Rebecca, and a bond-brother named Steve. He didn't want to go to college, because he wanted Steve to go to college. And, no, he wasn't struck by lightning-" she missed all of them; everything reminded her of them "-or dropped in a vat of acid that somehow didn't kill him. He had a lot of struggles, and they added up to being a hero. Also - I think he wanted something like us when he was younger."

Edward paused, thinking, and Darcy slurped at her milkshake. Tony had always told her that the strawberry-chocolate-banana blend was the best, and she had to agree. But, then - "will you tell me which one he was? I'm 17. I think I can handle it."

Darcy wasn't as opposed to the idea as she had thought she might be when she was thinking about it when Edward was toddling around her parents' living room. "Okay, Duke, you got me. Stop begging! Please - my old heart can't take it!"

He sighed, used to her theatrics. "You're like 40, Mom. Chill."

"Chill. Riiiight. Well, since you want to know so badly, he was the W-"

Something caught her eye.

That something was a group of teenagers, seven in all. Two were tall blondes, though one was lanky and the other was beefy. Four dark haired boys (ranging from dirty blonde to dark brown, which, ow) were with them, and there was a lone girl, with red hair that was familiar to Darcy. What really caught her eye was the metal arm on the dark haired boy with icy blue eyes.

She knew that they were probably just dressing up as their favorite heroes. She knew that - she did! Hell, even Edward had gone as the Winter Soldier and Iron Man for Halloween before, so she knew it happened.

It's just. They looked so, so much like her old friends - she could even hear the accents (Brooklyn, Russian, Australian that was actually Asgardian, New Yorker, and rural American) from where she sat, because they all had loud voices, and they were all so vivid and demanding and adamant about whatever they were talking about. Not to mention, both of the tall, blonde boys' noses were clearly subjected to fists a lot, and the dirty blonde haired boy had the same. They all also had at least one scar on their face, in hauntingly familiar places.

She couldn't help it. Truly, she couldn't. Her legs decided for her that she was going over there without her consent.

She stood from her seat, Edward scrambling to his feet behind her like a puppy, and stomped over the table to teens, her eyes ablaze with anger (and definitely not tears, because she was a grown woman, dammit, and it had been 18 years).

"Who the hell do you think you are?" She demanded of them.

They all looked bewildered - except for the ones that reminded her of Bucky, Thor, Clint and Nat, the Avengers who were always guarded, who all looked ready for a fight that they might have to start. Maybe she was being a little too bitchy, but... She had good reason, okay?

"Um," the one that reminds her of Steve says, and it's his voice, she'll never forget it, but - Steve Rogers would be well over 110, not 16. "I'm sorry, but-"

Darcy doesn't hear the rest of what he says. She locks eyes with the boy that looks exactly like Bucky did that one time Amora thought it would be funny to de-age the Avengers - they all look like that, actually, and what conclusion is she supposed to come to?

She feels the familiar shiver in her spine at the gaze - the one Bucky always gave her because he was so intense about everything he did. He looks at her like he knows her, and Darcy starts to shake a little. This kid is so like her Bucky, it hurts. She wants to wrap herself around him and sob but he's just a kid, some random stranger that she happened upon.

But then he's running, right out of the door, almost through the door, and he looked so frightened, just like she remembered, and she was numb.

"Uh, yeah, that was weird," the dark haired kid with the New York accent said to her, but Darcy didn't realize it until he tapped her.

"Ya think?" The other two dark haired boys say in unison. The girl snorts softly, and shares a look with Not!Steve.

"I'm Tony," he said, offering her his hand. "And you look really familiar. Do I know you? I think I would remember meeting you, though, so...?"

Edward made a face behind her back at Tony, who looked a little too much like her Tony that it didn't seem like a coincidence. But Tony Stark was probably dead or dying with the Dino's in Jurassic!Earth or some river, collecting silt instead of dust.

She shook it, and was surprised to find no calluses. This isn't Tony Stark, she reminded herself. "Darcy Lewis. And, no, you don't." She suddenly thought back to how the whole thing so far had gone down, and blushed. "I just, I'm sorry, you guys look really familiar, too."

The tall, beefy one tilted his head and she refrained from booping his nose just barely. "Who do we remind you of, then?" He spoke with a regal air, and she bit at the inside of her cheek.

"Old friends," she said lightly, "ones that died a long time ago."

They all got a look on their faces, like they could relate, and then, because she knew those faces, knew them like the back of her hand (and knew them because her old friends had all been sad sacks that made that face often) and she was a hairsbreadth away from a mental breakdown, she paid the bill, grabbed Edward and booked it.

* * *

Edward wanted to know what was going on. Darcy told him she would tell him, just as soon as she got in touch with another old friend.

"But Mom! An old friend? What the hell? You have a while left, like years, actually - call your friend when you're actually running out of time and not right now, because clearly, that guy that ran did something and I don't like the one named Tony -"

"Edward James Lewis," she said in her most Mom Is Not Happy voice. "I will tell you anything you want to know if you stop talking for a minute and let me speak to my friend, okay?"

He sighed through his nose, but relaxed back into his seat and nodded.

She dialed so fast the first time that she pressed the wrong number, and had to start over. When she finally got through, she rushed out, "I think I found them. But there's a problem, if I did - legit - find them."

"...What?" Pepper asks, slowly and with not an ounce of inflection. She sighed.

"I - found - them!" Darcy enunciates, because not one of them had just accepted that the Avengers all disappeared out of the blue, and Pepper had been searching more than Darcy had. "I think, at least. They looked, acted and sounded like them and I just -" she cuts off. She just what? Couldn't handle it? Couldn't believe it, so she'd stormed up to them and acted like a bitch?

She wonders if she's just getting Pepper's hopes up.

"Tell me everything," Pepper says, and Darcy feels less like an idiot when she hears Pepper's conviction.

* * *

 

Bucky breathed through his nose and tried to calm down. He was walking through the headstones, something he had done since he was a little kid and got anxiety/panic attacks. He went there to think, and that day, he had a lot to think about - his thoughts were nearing erratic and he couldn't stop panting.

Darcy was a stranger, and her name probably wasn't even Darcy and he was just being stupid like all the times before, right? Except - he already felt like a psychopath, so if he just somehow knew this woman, then it wouldn't be that weird, right?

Bucky... didn't believe any of the bullshit he was spouting. It would be bad if he knew her, because it would validate the mental pictures he had of killing people. (Killing people. God, who was he? What was his life, even?)

He felt like he knew her, though - he felt like he should know the teenager she had with her. He felt like she was connected to Steve's group of friends and Bucky himself, even though he didn't know them well enough to really have shared life experience but again, he'd never seen the woman before in his life, except in the double memories he pretended weren't real.

Bucky started to walk back around, towards the entrance. He had to go talk to his mom after he was done sorting things out.

And she was the most vivid "memory" he'd ever had, which was kinda freaky. Mostly, he remembered the way something tasted or smelled or looked like, even if he hadn't ever been in contact with it. Steve and his friends confessed to the same things - Tony and Bruce said they thought it was something scientific, Thor said it had to magic and Nat said it was explainable, she just didn't have the summary for it. Bucky thought it was something religious - but none of the things he saw ever helped him find himself or save lives, in the end. It was all the same normal stuff he knew about the life he lived every day, just dated a century back.

And yeah... a century. Bucky was pretty sure that Bruce and Clint's were set in the 1970's, which was already a trip and a half, and Thor's in ancient times, which just made his head pound. But, it made sense - Bruce and Clint had no fashion sense and Thor had manners like not one other 18 year old he knew. So why were his from the early twentieth century?

And why did he know exactly what a woman - a mother of a kid his own age - looked like naked and in the throes of passion? Passion that was brought on by a set of human fingers and a set of metal ones, that were clearly his, mind you.

He didn't know if he wanted the picture out of his mind or not.

Bucky was going insane, surely. Right? That made sense, didn't it?

(And he wanted to know why that teenager looked so much like him, goddammit.)

* * *

Darcy regrets telling Edward he could have whatever knowledge he wanted. Why? Because the first question out of his mouth, after she had gotten off the call with Pepper and was just sitting in the backseat next to him and not really moving, had been:

"What was Dad's real name, and superhero name?"

Darcy sighed, put upon, and told him, "James 'Bucky' Barnes. Winter Soldier."

Edward had - she didn't know - gaped at her, not breathing, and right when she got worried did he start back up, gasping and "holy fuck"-ing, something he had picked up solely from her. "Bucky Barnes was my dad. I'm the product of one of America's best soldiers, who fought in WWll, what the fuck, how, I just, whaaaaaat?"

Darcy nodded, a look on her face that said she didn't disagree.

"I asked myself that a lot, Duke."

"Do you know how he came back to life, then? The books never explained it, they just said he showed up in D.C. in 2014 and hen joined the Avengers in 2015. And you must know the Avengers, too, right? Or known them? Are they the friends you told those guys in the cafe about?"

Darcy resisted making a face at all of the questions, and told him, "it's a very long story and it's very sad, so I'll put that off for now. I did know the Avengers, and they are the friends I told those kids about."

"How is it sad?" Edward demanded. He looked enraptured.

"He was brainwashed and turned into an emotionless assassin for, like, upwards of 70 years."

"Oh," he said, somberly.

"Yeah."

"So... Did he ever know about me? Do you think he would have wanted me?"

Darcy's eyes filled with tears, because she had thought the same things for 18 years. "He went missing before even I found out about you, so no, he didn't know. But I think he would have wanted you with his whole being. Even though life had handed him a shitty deal, he was amazing and was good with kids and even wanted one of his own, once upon a time."

"What do you think really happened to the Avengers? No one ever says what really happened, but some one has to know, right? Superheroes can't just go missing out of nowhere."

"I think someone took them. I think someone took their memories. I think that they're out there, somewhere," like where we are right now, "and I think that they don't know what happened to them, why they're where they are. It was like that with Bucky. He was a puppet to be used, and he didn't know anything about himself or anything around him other than that he was where he was 'supposed' to be and was not allowed to leave. He thought he was un-help-able. He thought he had nowhere else to go, no one else to be, so he stayed until your Uncle Steve saved him."

Saved was pretty out there, considering what really happened, but Steve had actually helped Bucky a lot, and taught him that he was a human, he had rights, he could do or be anything or anyone he wanted.

"Uncle Steve... Captain America was named Steve." Edward said aloud, thinking to himself. "Dad was in trouble, and Uncle Steve saved him. Dad was the Winter Soldier. Uncle Steve was Captain America. Dad and Uncle Steve are missing. I..."

"It's a lot to take in," Darcy offered, "I can barely handle it myself, and I lived through it. That's why I waited to tell you."

Edward started to shake, something he had gotten from both parents, and Darcy leaned forward into his personal space to wrap her arms around him and give him a Comfort Hug That Was Non-Negotiable.

"Mom?" He said into her shoulder, and Darcy bit her lip.

"Yeah?"

"When you said you found them earlier, what did you mean?"

"Uh... The kid who ran out before anyone really said anything? He looked exactly like your father did when the Avengers were de-aged. Before he went missing, he looked a lot like that, too, but he looked older."

"Oh, God." Edward groaned. "I didn't even get a good look at him. I was just mad that he ran..."

"It's okay," Darcy reassured him, because she knew he was edging toward an anxiety attack. "It's okay, Duke. I think he ran because of me, not you. He would have wanted you, alright? I know he would have."

They sat in the backseat for a long time after that.

* * *

 

The people the Avengers left behind all hauled ass down to the small town with two days. They rented out the only hotel. They kept an eye out for the "teens who look unfairly like the team."

Clint, Bruce and Natasha encountered them first.

See, these losers had come up to the trio, the ones in their friend-group who were the quietest at all times, and despite them being in plain sight, had started to make fun of Bruce and Clint. Clint had swung the first fist, he'll admit it, but they'd made fun of him for being fucking deaf, like he could help it. Bruce had backed up, not one for fights, but Natasha had thrown herself into the fray and -

The police were called. Clint had broken his wrist again, and Nat suffered from a broken nail. The idiots were all on the ground, moaning. Clint's nose was bleeding, and Bruce was probably hyperventilating (he had too many double memories of fighting; he could barely handle watching it, much less being near it), but they'd won, hadn't they?

That was when a dark haired chick, one that kinda held herself the way the lady at the diner had a few days before, had walked up and asked what the fight was about. She had to ask Natasha, because Clint was shouting insults at the idiots instead of answering the police's questions.

"That's right, you fuckers! Talk shit, get hit, bitches!" Clint was screeching. "Call Bruce gay one more fucking time and I'll make sure you get the worst of Thor's wrath!"

Nat sighed. "They called Bruce a queer and made fun of Clint's hearing aids. So we fought them. Like he said, talk shit, get hit. We don't tolerate bullying."

"You have a fantastic way of settling your problems, and stopping bullying, then," Kate said with a voice cry as dust.

Nat just raise an eyebrow and walked over to Bruce, who was definitely shaking. Later, when she told Clint and Bruce about the interaction, she commented on how she felt like she knew the girl, and all three had double memories that day and night.

Steve and Tony encountered them next.

They were having their weekly debate about everything, sitting in the same diner as always, and just getting into it ("Pineapple  _is_  better, you fuckwit, ham and sausage is  _disgusting_ -") when someone sat at their table. They both stopped talking abruptly, not recognizing the black man at first.

"Um, can we help you,  _stranger_?" Tony snapped, still angry that Steve thought pineapple was not a good pizza topping. "This table is taken, if you haven't noticed."

The guy held out a hand, and told them, "I'm Sam."

"I'm Steve, this is Tony. It's nice to meet you," Steve offered, cutting in before Tony could make an ass of himself. "Was there something you needed?"

"Just wanted to talk, if that's okay?" He got a nod from Steve, and a scowl from Tony, but went on. "Alright, well... I heard that there were some kids down this way that had weird incidents? Where they just zoned out and started talking to themselves, or moving their hands and bodies in weird ways? Do you know where I could find them? I wanted to ask them some questions," he explained.

Before Steve could tell Tony not to, words were spilling out of Tony's mouth like a waterfall. "Yeah, you're talking to two of 'em, dingus. And they aren't  _incidents_ , Jesus, we're not fucking insane, we just get double memories sometimes. You make us sound like we're freaking possessed or something. Fuck. Also, I'll answer all the questions you can fit into ten minuets and then you get zip."

Steve gaped at him. Sam raised an eyebrow.

"Well, um, I'm a journalist, and I had a few questions? Do you have time to answer them now, or, if not, could we schedule them for a later time?"

"We have time right-" Steve started, but his and Tony's phones both rang, singing out "SCIENCE PARENT ALERT. SCIENCE PARENT ALERT." in an alarmingly deep voice, and "OMG IT'S MOM ANSWER NOW, ANSWER NOW, OMG IT'S MOM, ANSWER NOW, ANSWER NOW," in a high pitched, panicked tone.

"Uh," they said together, scrambling to answer.

"Dad? Is there a problem, do I need-" Steve cut off.

"Mom, what? I'm busy. I'm trying to debate Steve about pizza, and you're inter-" Tony paused, too. "Got it," he said, voice hard. He hung up, then stood from his seat, and told Steve, deal with this guy, alright? Bruce and Bucky got in a fight, something about  _you're upset_  and  _no I'm not_ , blah blah blah, and apparently  _I_  have to deal with it because it was in front of my house." Steve gave a thumbs up and a wave, then went back to listening to his father.

"No, I think Tony's got it at the moment... make sure he doesn't press the metaphorical red button until I get there, please? Thanks, Dad. Alright, love ya too. Bye." He turned to Sam, who had a weird look in his eye. "Um, I have to go, but here's my number," he said, as he jotted down said number on a napkin. "Call sometime and we can schedule a meeting. Should I bring all of my friends who do it, too, or...?"

"That would be great, thanks, Steve. See you!" Sam seemed sad that he couldn't ask his questions, and Steve almost stayed, but he had to go fix the problem between his friends. It was practically his job.

"You too," he said loudly as he rushed outside.


End file.
